Last Chance

A tall muscular young man lifts his hand into and shouts. “Flame Wall!” His red eyes glow beautifully before the entire area erupts into a giant wall of fire.

“Wow!” A young girl says in awe at the incredible display of magic. “Grandpa! Grandpa! Can you do that too!” She looks down at the old man carrying her on his shoulders.

“Back in my younger days I could, dear.” Grandpa chuckles while watching a woman jump across the fire and point her finger at the man.

“Spirit Blast!” From the tip of her finger, a ball of energy shoots out, hitting the man and sending him flying across the arena.

“This is so fun!” With sparkles in her eyes, the little girl swings her legs wildly in excitement.

“Indeed, it is.” The older man smiles as the battle continues. “And one day, you’ll be right there with them too.” He adds, making the young lady smile.

“Yes!”

***

“Duels are no longer a core pillar of our curriculum, so I’m afraid that the Dueling Club is no longer of interest to be funded.”

The stern voice echoes through the headmistress’ room. The voice belongs to an elderly woman who has light-gray hair in a shingle bob cut, her skin was ghostly pale and filled with wrinkles that left no doubt about her age. But the older lady’s most distinguished feature was the shape of her caramel-colored iris, which was that of a rectangle.

Sitting on the opposite side to the headmistress was a young girl with long baby-blue hair styled in a hime-cut, thick hikimayu-styled eyebrows and bright green eyes with an up-pointing triangular iris. “B-But-“

“Umiko.”

“Urgh.”

With a heavy sigh the older lady explains. “We have a lot on our plates right now with the school reforms, dear. Keeping a club that doesn’t promote results just because of their past accomplishments isn’t viable.”

“At least give me a chance!” The blue-haired girl shouts while getting up from her chair. “If I can only find more members then we can-“ She stops and sits down once the headmistress gives a harsh look.

“We’ve given you enough chances, dear.” Her disappointed tone making the younger lady curl up in her seat. “You have been at the helm of the Dueling Club for the past three months, a club that you promised to revive.” A short but very awkward silence settles in between the two, only being broken by the headmistress’ voice. “Now that were done here, you may go back to-“

“Please! Just one more month!” Umiko gets up and bows while clasping her hands. “I’ll do anything! Just give me one more month!” The desperation present in her voice made the elder pinch the bridge of her nose.

“…” She looks uncertain, before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. “Okay, fine.“ Before the youngster could celebrate, the headmistress adds. “You’ll have until tomorrow night to submit at least one more member for your club.”

“I’ll do it!” The blue-haired teenager yells while pumping her hand in the air. “I promise you won’t regret giving me this chance!” With that declaration, she turned around and bolted out of the office even before the headmistress could properly dismiss her.

Now left alone in the room with her own thoughts, the elder’s eyes gaze upon a wall to her right where the portraits of her predecessors judged her every move. Pictures of great men and women that came before her as the authorities on this prestigious school.

“Madam?” A deep voice calls from the other side of the door, taking her away from those thoughts. “May I?”

“Yes, yes. Please come in.”

The loud creaking of the old wooden door fills the room as the Deputy Headmaster makes his way in. He is a tall man with long dark-green hair, his iris is of a black color and has the form of two small rectangles.

“I saw Umiko running out of your office before I came in. Judging by her nervous mood, I assume that you finally cut off the funds for her club?” He watches as his superior gets up and slowly walks towards the mural with her predecessors.

After a moment of silence, the man sighs. He had worked with this same elderly woman for years now, so he knew exactly what her quietude meant.

“If I may offer my opinion, we already gave her enough chan-“

“Kurohane Academy’s visit is due today, isn’t it?” The headmistress’ sudden inquiry makes the tall man raise an eyebrow.

“… Yes, but I don’t see how that's-“

“I’m afraid there is only one way for Umiko to give up on that club of hers.” Closing her eyes, the older woman takes a deep breath as if she was gathering courage to proceed with what she had in mind. “She needs a firsthand dose of reality.”

***

“-Now does any of you know the answer to this question?” A plump woman with blue pointing down triangular eyes asks the class, she sees a couple of hands being raised. “Ummm, let’s see…” Her gaze then lands on Umiko, which was reclined back on her chair and was looking at the ceiling, obviously with her head on the clouds. “Umiko!”

Hearing the teacher’s call, the blue-haired girl stands up and quickly shouts. “1989!”

There’s a short moment of silence before the adult woman yells back. “No you dolt! Mahōgans are way older than just 20 years!” At her outburst, the other students giggle. “Shush it! All of you!” Turning around, the woman takes a deep breath. “That’s exactly why I hate teaching teenagers! Why couldn’t they assign me to the cute middle schoolers!?”

In midst of her ranting, another girl gets up and says. “The first Mahōgan user was born in 1587. His name has been long lost to time, and his eye-type was a Gensogan with the ability to control the winds.” Once she was done, the girl sat down.

“This is stuff a fourth grader would know!” Adjusting her glasses and clearing her throat, the teacher adds. “Pay more attention to class Umiko, your grades are already abysmal  and you can’t afford to make them worse.”

With a weak ‘yeah, yeah’ the blue-haired teenager sat back down and buried her head between her arms. ‘I need to find people for the club! Who cares about classes!?’ She thought while lifting her head and staring at the clock on the wall.

‘I have to think of something fast!’

***

On a virtually empty classroom, a young man sits alone in the last seat in the row further away from the door. He has pale white skin and a peculiar hairdo consisting of a large star-shaped bang alongside his short brunet hair. On his face rest a pair of round glasses.

The boy eats his lunch peacefully, sometimes looking out of the window that leads into the backyard. He watched students from all grades fraternizing with each other. Normally an unusual sight, but Yumehara was a K-12 school which meant a group of friends had quite the large age range between itself.

A sudden sliding sound took the star-haired boy out of his thoughts. Turning to face the door, he sees a young girl, seemingly a middle schooler, with blue hair carrying a flag with some strange drawings plastered all over it, she also wore a bandana with the same symbols.

Looking at them a bit more, they were supposed to be Kanji but were so poorly written that it came off as a drawing made by a child.

Marching to the podium, the small girl shouts. “Good morning!” She stops and waits for an answer, but the four students present in the room just stare with a look of confusion. “My name is Umiko and I’m here to humbly ask if any of you kind souls would like to join my-“ At the word ‘join’ all four other freshmen just return to that they were doing before. “Hey! At least let me finish it before ignoring me!”

“If you’re here to ask for us to join your club, just give up.” A girl retorts without looking up from her phone. “Pretty much everyone here is already part of a club.”

Umiko clasps her hands together and bows. “Please! I just need one more person to save the dueling club!”

Once again, everyone goes back to ignoring her.

“Dueling club?” The boy in the back with the star-shaped hair whispers to himself.

With her ears parking up, the blue-haired girl shouts. “Yes my friend!” She dashes across the classroom and grabs the boy by the shoulders. “Wanna join?” While holding him in place, she stares at his eyes. “Wow, I never seen eyes like those before.” That comment made the boy shake his head and push her away.

Gulping, he explains awkwardly. “S-Sorry I don’t like fighting.” At his words, she falls on her knees. “A-Are you okay!?” He asks worriedly.

“Y-Yes… I’m fine.” Her completely defeated expression said otherwise. “But c’mon man! I already went to all the other classes and no one wants to join! What do you people have against dueling!?”

“Look, dueling is pretty cool yeah, but this school’s club only brought misfortune. It’s just not worth it.” A boy in the front row comments.

“If something as vague as misfortune is what stopping you from joining, that’s good we don’t need cowards in the club!” She snaps back.

The boy angrily gets up and opens his mouth to retort, but at the last second, a familiar voice echoes from the speakers in the hallway. “Umiko of class 1-3, please come to the school’s entrance. I repeat, Umiko of class-“

“Me?” Getting up on her feet, the blue-haired girl stares at the speaker with a confused expression. “…” She takes a deep breath and runs out of the room, leaving the students to just stare at each other in a state of confusion.

“…” Looking outside the window once again, the brunet boy notices that suddenly the backyard was completely empty. “I have a bad feeling about this.” He gets up from his seat, seals his bentō and runs out of the classroom.

***

Umiko’s footsteps echo across the surprisingly empty hallway, the usually crowded space without its sea of white seifukus and navy-blue gakurans felt eerie, like a prelude to a disaster.

It wasn’t long until she found where everybody went.

Stepping onto the school’s entrance area, she had to squeeze between many students that were whispering to themselves. Luckily, because of her small size, she was able to swiftly come out onto the other side in time.

“Headmistress? Did you call m… e?” She stopped in place once the group standing at the entrance turned their heads to face her. “… You are… !”

“Kurohane Academy’s freshman dueling club.” The headmistress spoke, her carrying a particularly heavy tone this time around. “And-“ She gazed into Umiko’s green eyes, before adding.

“-your opponents for today’s match.”